Following Jesus Son of God …

I’m messing around again with the music.

Now I belong to Jesus arr. by dave scott

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How I talk to you affects how “I see you.”

• Colossians 4:5-6 (NIV)
  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

My conversation toward you, especially toward outsiders, is to always be full of grace, seasoned with salt.  Not sugar.  Get it?  Spicy, bringing out the flavor, not syrpy, covering over the taste with “Christian-speak.”

That’s how we are to speak to the people around us.  Always.

So how does how I talk to you affect how I see you?

How does grace allow me to “see you?”
When I speak from grace, God gives me spiritual x-ray vision (from Avatar – “I see you.”)  To speak from grace, I have to be aware of grace, living in grace, seeing my desperate need for grace.  When I am “in grace,” then a few things happen.  I speak to you as if I actually care about you.  I listen to you.  I don’t judge you.  I am a true believer in “who am I to judge.”  I value the opportunity to have conversation with you.

From grace, I am very accepting of who I am in Jesus Christ.  So I don’t compete.  I am not afraid of you, or jealous of you so I don’t see the need to try to whittle you down to my size.  I don’t try to impress you.  I don’t draw on my own resources to build my self-esteem and construct who I am.  I let God do the talking, teach me who I am, how much he cares for me and loves me, how strong he is.

So I don’t have to fend for myself; God does it all, even heals my wounds from relationships gone bad.

Then …
Then, not always, but often, you see something amazing.  You see Jesus Christ in me.  A clay jar that once was broken and very dirty, but now is under the care of the Master Craftsman.

You see God.  I mean, it’s still me standing there, but you see something more, a glimpse, a wisp, a reflection of forever.  God has definitely joined our conversation.

It must be those words.

And this feeling?  Hope?  No way!  Thought that was long ago buried in a sea of disillusionment,  but now you wonder if maybe I can answer your question, the one that’s always bounding around, often below the surface of your consciousness, teasing, sometimes tormenting, but there nonetheless – Is there more to life?

And for the first time in a long time, you do have hope.

And I am better able to “know how to answer” because I see through the defenses you have erected to keep out the pain and disillusionment, the facade you constructed to keep me from the danger of knowing you has already crumbled.

And you let the walls fall because you realize I am not your competitor or your enemy, that in the name of Jesus, I am helper and friend.

Lyrics from “Healing Begins”  by 10th Avenue North

So you thought you had to keep this up, All the work that you do
So we think that you’re good, And you can’t believe it’s not enough
All the walls you built up, Are just glass on the outside

So let ’em fall down, There’s freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground, We’re here now

This is where the healing begins, oh, This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within, The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark
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Speaking from grace, my friends.  This is where the healing begins.  The walls come down when grace floods the room.

• Psalm 32.1-2 NIV
  Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Sometimes as I write a post the best thoughts just kind of squirt out at the end.  That happened yesterday with this sentence:  “What a friend is the friend of Jesus.”

It’s like “now that’s a tomato!”
After eating tomatoes wrapped in plastic all winter, you are beginning to believe that is how tomatoes taste, then you go out to the garden (or even better your neighbor brings a sack over) and twist your first tomato off the vine and rub the dirt off …

And take a bite and as you dribble down the front of your t-shirt you remember … “Now that’s a tomato!”

And that is what it is like with friends or associates, even Christians.  I’d rather have the ones that have had some dirt rubbed off them.  The ones that have been rolled around in the grace and mercy of God.

The ones that have kept themselves so clean in plastic wrap, nyah, not so much.

We all have the dirt; some deal with it before Jesus, some don’t.

I’m not saying we intentionally sin so that grace increases.  (Hmmm … where have I heard that?)  But it does when we do.  God says so.  (Romans 5.20-21)

I am saying that if we live honestly before God and the people around us stuff happens.  Our feet get dirty on the path; sometimes more than that.  But the “real tomato” knows where grace is; the real tomato knows in what she is planted – the righteousness and goodness and mercy and grace and love of God.  All bought and paid for by one man, his name being Jesus.

• But where sin increased, grace increased all the more … (Romans 5.20 NIV).

And that is the soil where the friend of the friend of Jesus grows.  When you are around the person in the body or in spirit via email or telephone … iPad 🙂

You taste God.

• Psalm 34:8 (NIV)
  Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

And the ones in his garden taste awfully good also.  Because in that holy place where God does his transforming work it is all about his righteousness being grown into us, absorbed through the precious soil of our salvation, cultivated by the Holy Spirit of God.

• “the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1.11).

Now that’s a tomato!

What a friend is the friend of Jesus!

I am using different web publishing software for this site now so may take some time to get things how I want them.  Let me know what you think of the changes.

Beyond Pretend: A Sheep’s Guide to the Universe!

http://beyondpretend.info/index.html

This is what was on my mind a couple mornings ago.  Not sure why.  Maybe I was especially bad that morning, maybe I was in the middle of a really good prayer time.  Doesn’t matter where I was because the truth stands apart from my goodness or badness.

Forgiveness is always waiting for us.  Always there.

What we have done or thought about doing …

Bad stuff, good stuff, in-between stuff …

All taken care of through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  God doesn’t want us cringing in the corner, whipping ourselves.

He also doesn’t want us full of ourselves.

Just bow before the King and approach his throne with boldness because he already paid the full price.

Christ has provided what we need for the journey.  I was talking to someone the other day and saying that the more I live (read the older I get) the less I am prone to criticize and judge.  Been through too much, friend.

And here is a really great aspect of the saga.  The people who have “been through too much” and come out on the other side of God’s grace and mercy and love, the people who have tasted the deliciousness of God’s forgiveness.

Beauty.  Real beauty.  Beauty that you see and feel when you are around them.  Beauty that drifts over you when you read an email from them or talk to them on the phone.

There’s something so medicinal, even intoxicating, about the person who depends greatly on the cross-work of Jesus Christ.  They are the ones I want around when I am happy and sad, when I go to war in the name of my Savior.

All fresh and clean and dripping with the love of God.

What a friend is the friend of Jesus.

• Ephesians 1.7-8 NIV
  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

Agent Salazar and Col. Wexler on dying for something … (from The International)

• Agent Salazar
  “Yeah, but based on everything I’ve read about you, you seem like the kind of man who aspired to die for something more than this.”

• Col. Wexler
  “Well, this is the difference between truth and fiction.  Fiction has to make sense.”

Why do we sometimes we lose our “zing,” the feeling that life is significant, and that, in fact, we are significant in the plans of the true Master of the Universe?

Our courage melts into bravado, our faith descends to sight, living in view of forever is something that will come later.

I believe we lose our edge for living when we don’t live with something to die for.

• (Matthew 16:24-26 ESV)
  Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

When we follow Jesus our world changes.
We lose “our world” and live in his world.  The comparison is that even if we could carry out our plans to the fullest and have life exactly as we planned that it would be no profit because we gave away our soul, our opportunity to connect with what is truly “the next level,” that is, life as God plans it.

Dying is the new living.
When Jesus Christ calls us to die, he is really calling us to live.  We die to a world that we plan, where we try to maintain control, make life safe, more comfortable, more fun (as we see it).

But we have a huge problem.
It is all our creation and conception.  We have given birth to a world that can extend no further than what we can imagine, a world limited to our resources that stands still before eternity rather than has eternity as its context.

• Ephesians 3:20-21 (MSG)
  God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

  Glory to God in the church!
  Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
  Glory down all the generations!
  Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

So who am I going to live for?  Who am I going to die for?  Whose world will I choose to live in?

That’s what I’m wondering …

I say …

I say I love you and think you are fantastic, and I want to develop a meaningful relationship with you.

I tell other people how wonderful you are and how they should also get to know you better, that you are the most important person in my life.  I even tell myself that.  In fact, I have done so enough that I am really beginning to believe it.

But what really seems to happen is …

When things are going well, life is good, fun is happening, I don’t really want you interrupting my life, not too involved but close enough that you can watch out for me just in case.  So comforting.

Kind of like a “little red riding hood” relationship, not too hot, not too cold.  Just right!

I don’t talk to you very often anymore in any meaningful way.  Quick stuff, boilerplate niceties, but very spiritual sounding, after all, we have a deep relationship.

Pretty much our relationship is mostly words though, talk … lip action if you will.  Not just any words though.  I mean, I would never dream of giving anyone else the credit and honor I give to you as I speak of you.

But that’s about it … words.  And some other “going through the motions” stuff.  But mostly words, but really good words.  High praise as they say down south.

Until …

Until something goes  wrong with my nice little life. I get bad news from the doctor.  Or I need money.  Or the people around me are booger-heads.  Then I want you to jump in the middle of my problems.

Sometimes I need to remind you that this is the part where you ride in on your white horse and fix everything.  No, not the things you think need fixing.  I have a to-do list for you.  I call that praying.
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If the Bible has one message, it is about our love relationship to God.  I would say that I don’t mean to preach here, but I do.

What are we thinking?  No one could ever love you or me the way God loves us, and we sometimes don’t give him the time of day.

When things are going well we forget him.  But when trouble comes we run to him.  I would have a really hard time maintaining a relationship with someone like that.

Thankfully, I am not God.  And thankfully God speaks to us in patience and mercy and grace.  That is how I continue on the path.  The enemy accuses me of horrible things, and you know what?  Sometimes he is exactly right.  I am as bad or worse than he says.

But I keep going.  Keep trudging ahead.  One foot in front of the other because I believe that what Jesus did at Calvary took care of the worst of the worst of Dave Scott.  And Satan can accuse and mock and ridicule, and sometimes, and even often, be right, but I don’t stay on the path of faith because of anything I have done except to believe in what Jesus Son of God has done for me.

• Hebrews 4.14-16
  Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

I approach the throne of grace with confidence for one reason.  His name is Jesus!

And this amazes me.  God loves me with a forever love.  I love him as a weak little earthling.  And God thinks it’s great!

Praise be to this God, this King, this Savior of the world!

Welcome to the very first BRT podcast.  Please let me know what you think and if you think it is a good thing to do, help me spread the word.  Thanks, dave

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I am currently reading through A.W. Tozer’s book – “And He Dwelt Among Us” – a gift from my oldest son for Father’s Day.  (What a great gift!)

And I have become a fan of J.J. Heller by first becoming acquainted with her popular song “Your Hands.”  And now I have this mixture of these two (J.J. and A.W.) speaking to the turbulence of the human experience and the Rock steadiness of God’s care and love.

Wow!

Here is what Tozer writes on p. 27:

• It is the Rock that lasts.  The shipwrecked man is on the Rock now and is not going to perish.  The Rock is solid.  He may tremble and shake, but the Rock never shakes.

Now listen to J.J. Heller from the lyrics in “Your Hands.”

• When my world is shaking, Heaven stands, When my heart is breaking, I never leave Your hands

So powerful … I’m telling you, you need to listen to her music and read his book.